wendlfoundation

Wendl Foundation donation to Vianney High School

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 18:12:59 GMT

Wendl Foundation has completed a donation to St John Vianney High School (Kirkwood MO) of a copy of the 8 volume set Encyclopedia of Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics .

One of the charitable programs of the Wendl Foundation is to support St Louis educational institutions with donations of educational materials. Foundation Trustee Mike Wendl recently contacted St John Vianney High School President Rick Davis and Principal Ian Mulligan regarding the donation of an 8-volume set of the Encyclopedia of Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics published by John Wiley & Sons. The Encyclopedia (shown below) is an authoritative, broad–scope work that covers more than 400 topics, but it is not widely available in secondary school libraries because of its substantial ($2900) retail cost.

The Foundation felt that it would be a valuable and relatively unique resource for Vianney students interested in biotechnology and the biomedical sciences, which are now experiencing explosive rates of growth and advancement. The Vianney administration enthusiastically accepted the Foundation’s offer and the Encyclopedia arrived on campus on August 24, where it was accepted by Principal Mulligan. It will be added to Vianney’s permanent reference collection, where it hopefully will prove useful to both faculty and students for instruction and learning. The Wendl Foundation was delighted to make this donation and continues to search its archives for books, journal volumes, reference works, and other educational materials that can help St Louis institutions fulfill their educational and research missions.

Principal Ian Mulligan and Michael Wendl at St John Vianney Media Center

Wendl Foundation Textbook Project 10-th Anniversary

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 15:09:44 GMT

Educational materials are an increasing barrier to learning for the eager student. Retail prices of textbooks have risen at rates far greater than inflation for more than 2 decades ( Pioneer Institute | Problem: Overpriced Textbooks, Solution: Opensource Material ) and these increases have pushed the affordability of proper learning materials out of reach for many students. As one part of its larger educational mission in our local community, the Wendl Foundation seeks to help alleviate these barriers through the authoring and free distribution of high-caliber academic textbooks.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Wendl Foundation’s first free textbook “Conduction and Convection Heat Transfer” published in 2012. Distributed from various sources, including ResearchGate , the book (see above) has been used in engineering and physics classrooms for the past decade and has received glowing testimonials . As with many offerings in the growing open-source culture, this book has been released under a Creative Commons copyright license , which allows anyone (especially students) to download and use it for free. While not able to compete with larger projects like OpenStax in terms of the sheer numbers of free books offered, the Foundation is proud of a somewhat different distinction that is extremely uncommon among free books: Conduction and Convection has actually been used as a scientific reference in research work. According to Google Scholar , it has been cited by more than a dozen research papers and graduate theses.

The Wendl Foundation will be continuing its efforts in the distribution of high quality educational material useful to both students and private educational institutions. This benevolent activity is a logical extension of its broader mission of improving quality of life through education and other forms of personal development consistent with the dignity of the human person.

Donation of Published Materials to Saint Louis University

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 22:22:25 GMT

Although the Wendl Foundation primarily works to underwrite computer hardware and IT support for both under-resourced schools and to children of low-income families within the City of St Louis, it also looks for other charitable opportunities, including assisting St Louis non-profit institutions with their educational missions. One such mechanism is donating educational and/or informational materials. We recently became aware that Saint Louis University (SLU) holds the Journal of Composite Materials, but that its collection is missing a number of volumes. The Foundation happened to hold several of these volumes in its own archives and contacted SLU Dean of Libraries, David Cassens, to inquire about donating these volumes toward SLU completing its holdings of this journal. Dean Cassens enthusiastically accepted and connected Edgar Thomas, SLU Senior Library Associate, with Michael Wendl, a Wendl Foundation trustee.

The volumes ultimately arrived at SLU Pius XII Memorial Library on June 15, where they were accepted by SLU Library Associates Kegan Phillips and Austin Case

(photo: From left to right Austin Case and Michael Wendl at SLU Pius Library).

Wendl Foundation Earns Candid Transparency Seal of Approval

vwendl@wendlfoundation.org (Victor Wendl) — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 22:05:18 GMT

Candid is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals select nonprofit organizations before engaging in benevolent activity. They are the go-to source in helping donors do good by finding out where a particular nonprofit’s money comes from, where it goes, and why it matters. Candid's data tools on nonprofits, foundations, and grants are the most comprehensive in the world. A tool exists at their website, www.candid.org , to gauge the transparency of an organization through a simple rating: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Only a small subset of nonprofit organizations registered with the IRS have gone through the due diligence of providing all the necessary information to earn a seal of transparency with Candid. According to a recent blog post, about 5% of the 1.7 million nonprofits registered with the IRS earned a seal of transparency with Candid.

For calendar year 2022, the Wendl Foundation has earned the silver level of transparency by Candid. Of the 5% of nonprofit organizations that hold a Candid seal of transparency, the chart above shows about 19% of them are classified in the silver category.

Nonprofit organizations such as the Wendl Foundation who earn the Candid transparency seal of approval are free to post the emblem on their website along with including the information on their brochure materials distributed to potential donors (see below).